One of the cascade of shocks the #Oromo nation continue to endure in the wake of the yet unsolved assassination of Haacaaluu Hundeessaa is the following crackdown on multiple individuals who represent a significant political agency of the Oromo in the 🇪🇹to come.
Among the consequential arrests is the likes of Bekele, Jawar & Hamza, seen here after 40 days of hunger strike for what they believed in. But it’s a mistake to think the crackdown was limited to them. Speak with any Oromo, you will learn that there is a pre & post Hacaaluu 🇪🇹.
That’s so not only b/s Hacee was assassinated, but also everything that the Oromo lost after that either to death, jail or disappearance (be it individuals of political parties), share one thing in common: they’re known among the Oromo as icons of a struggle for a pan Oromo cause
A conversation w. any Qeerroo/Qaarree, the youth in Oromia, will also help you to learn that after the industrial scale crackdown ff Hacee’s killing the ruling party has moved on to dismantle the same grassroots network it used in the last 1 1/2 years of the 5 yrs #OromoProtests
The ruling party of PM Abiy Ahmed is enjoying this as a problem solved. After all, by a spectacular coincidence critics are either killed, jailed or disappeared; & rival political parties like OLF are split & weakened & then systematically eliminated from running in the election.
After the arrest of Bekele & Jawar the choking narrative propagated through the state & its affiliate media was that a Jawar & co jailed was the Ethiopia fixed. But things have actually gotten worse.
That’s why I believe this picture will haunt Abiy’s political legacy forever.
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This week Be’aman Netsere, a seasoned Orthodox Church scholar, & Yared Shumete, a humanitarian, published their travel experiences about the war in #Tigray.
Both raised facts Ethiopia needs to reckon with.
Most important, Be’aman confirmed the #Axum & #Dengolat massacres.
He also captured pics of Eritrean forces freely roaming near the Axum obelisk.
But it’s what he said about the deafening silence of the EOTC both on the massacres & the wanton destruction of its own holy sites that needs to be paid the at most attention, imo!
Yared too raised important factors that need a collective reckoning: the psychological trauma the people of #Tigray are enduring as a result of this senseless war & his fear on whether they will make the annual walk to Adewa in connection with the March 02 Adwa Victory Day.
The powerful pro-war camp has deployed 2 potent means to silence anyone against the armed conflict in Tigray or for a negotiated settlement (dialogue): to defame all as paid by the "Junta" & to chastise all as an "ethnonationist" wanting to save the TPLF."
Four things to say 👇🏿
1- No armed conflict in the world, much less politically complex as the one in Tigray, has ever been resolved without a roundtable negotiated settlement. So please stop intimidating/threatening anyone who is an advocate of a negotiated settlement. It may happen that way anyway.
2- TPLF's life doesn't depend on your "ethnonationist" nightmare's advocacy anymore than the other parties to this armed conflict, including foreign actors, are on your unquestioning support to it.
Such arguments are simply the limit of a hawks' depravity of imagination, sadly
A war against the member of the federation is an epic tragedy! But not unexpected.
@AbiyAhmedAli's grand ambition of nation building experiment failed spectacularly, just a few months into its plan.
As such,losing his political capital & support base was a natural outcome. 1/4
But out of the ashes of this failure morphed not a democratic experiment, but an increasingly transactional political dispensation. Quickly it turned Abiy's version of nation building into a deal b/n him & his allies based on who gets crushed & who gets a seat at the table. 2/4
Sadly, the price tag for this transactional political order keeps skyrocketing; what started by jailing formidable opponents of Abiy's failed nation building project has now morphed into a civil war to get rid of TPLF, a powerful opponent, "once & for all" using the military. 3/4
William, with all due respect to your decision, I have to say this: when an article summarily calls "the Oromos are now the killers" it does more than criticize one individual; it simply labels the whole community as killers. There is no moral & ethical ground to platform it.
When an article calls an individual to "apologize on behalf of Oromos" it's not a criticism of this individual, it's a verdict against the entire community that they need to apologize for all the "bloodshed" caused by a few; & do they need to apologize on behalf of the state too?
When an article calls for an individual to set a "moderate middle ground for the Qaarrees and Qeerroos", it's not criticizing this individual only, its collectively labeling a generation as radicals in need of being moderated by the individual!
Just finished reading this article by PM @AbiyAhmedAli.
Interesting to see that the argument in the article is informed by,& in keeping with, the long established tradition of the Ethiopian state & its successive leaders & their concept of the source of power & legitimacy.1/7
The article taps into the long held practices of Ethiopian leaders' in seeking legitimacy from the state's external backers.
If anything, it's a perfect manifestation of how the call in 70s by Ethiopia's left for the establishment of a gov't by the people remain valid. 2/7
A gov't of the people whose ultimate source & legitimacy rely in the decision of the people of Ethiopia as much as whose accountabilities are to the people of Ethiopia.
Instead, what I saw in this article is a PM reaching out to the long held tradition & appealing to the...3/7